Guest post from our friend, Nancy, of Belgium
May 13th, 2010
My entire life I dreamed of an international life. I’ve pieced together all the scenarios of how I could live and work in San Sebastian, Paris, Tokyo, or London. As much as American girls fantasize about life in other parts of the world, there are just as many girls around the world thinking about a life in America. Here at Campus Confidant we’ve been blessed to have the wonderful help of an exchange student named Nancy. A former model and currently finishing up a stint at an international school in Santa Barbara, Nancy has given us a beautiful glimpse into the world of a young woman from across the globe. I’ve asked Nancy to share her thoughts on her experience. We will miss her dearly when she returns home later this month.
xoxo, Vanesa
Being an exchange student in the USA is a genuine experience, a unique project you know you may not do again before a long time. In my case, after 4 months of living in Santa Barbara, I have definitely changed my way of thinking toward everything I knew before about the world, but especially toward this multi-cultural culture; which is America.
I have never experienced such an extreme, mind-blowing, different, wealthy and amazing way of living, thinking and being. In contrast to the countries I’ve been to already, in Europe and Belgium, the USA has this power, strength, and potential I’ve never seen before. The American dream I heard about so many times in my history lessons seems to have had a real impact on me.
I think that the USA has always fascinated the “old continent”. Engineers, doctors, ambitious independents, artists, investors, or just ordinary families have been migrating in masses to the United States with the sole purpose of “seeking a better life”.
But why the USA? Why the USA and not China, Africa, Oceania or Russia? The world is so big…After a couple of months spent here I think I’m getting closer to the answer. America allows you to realise the craziest dreams you’ve ever had and it can give you the opportunity to travel almost all around the world, by staying in your own motherland. Nothing is too much and too much is nothing.
Wherever you come from, whatever you are and whatever your convictions might be, as soon as you’ve crossed the American border, you become an American citizen. And this is exactly what makes it so special.
Even though there were some hard times, having the blues and being homesick, I have never felt so “at home” even though I was abroad. I had the chance to travel through California and every single place I went there were different people, landscapes, influences, historical backgrounds, concerns, and politics.
The first thing that literally confused me as I arrived was the friendly, laid-back, and open minded way of living people had in California. A “ Hi, how is it going today?” when you get into a grocery store or a supermarket wouldn’t have been given the slightest in Europe. “Why are you asking such private questions when you don’t even know me? It doesn’t make sense,” we would have said. But this friendly way of starting a conversation is nothing but an amicable and usual form for saying “Hello”.
Thanks to all these wonderful people I have met, the places I have been, and the things I have learned, the general impression that will always stay in my heart is nothing but positive and my return to the so-called “Land of the free”.
To finish up this article I would like to thank Vanesa for having been one of the first greatest person I met in the US, the one who gave me a quick but pleasant glimpse of the way you work and finally the one who accepted me spontaneously onto the team.
Thank you for having me here,
Nancy
Nancy in Hollywood
